Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 12 by Angel in Black (v5.0) Page B

insincere smile, the Hat said, “Mr. Fowley, give your statement to Sergeant Brown, would you? . . . Mr. Heller, Nate—a word in private?”
    Hansen took me by the arm—gently—and walked me down the hallway and stopped; the yellow brick walls and the Hat’s tanned complexion were strangely compatible.
    “Nate,” the Hat said, his tiny mouth pursed in its kiss of a smile, “I understand you’ve gone to work for the Examiner .”
    “Not as a reporter, just providing some investigative backup. They’re gonna be shorthanded.”
    “Richardson is going all the way with this one.”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, that’s fine. You tell Jim I’ll be glad to cooperate with him . . . as long as he cooperates with me.”
    I shrugged. “Richardson is his own man, Harry. If you want to know the truth, I think he plans an end run around you boys.”
    “That’s not surprising news. Nate, can I trust you?”
    “Can I trust you?”
    He put a fatherly hand on my elbow. “We worked well on the Peete case, together, wouldn’t you say?”
    “Sure.”
    Now the hand rose to my shoulder and settled there. “I know you feel I . . . took credit where perhaps it wasn’t due.”
    “I didn’t give a shit—what good would California publicity do me back in Chicago?”
    He removed the hand from my shoulder, gesturing as he did. “Yes, but now you’re doing business here, and that changes things. . . . Nate, I want to work out an arrangement with you.”
    “What kind of arrangement, Harry?”

    The pouchy eyes tightened. “You keep me abreast of what the Examiner is up to, and I’ll do the same for you, where my efforts are concerned.”
    “And the point of this is . . . ?”
    “To find the fiend who did this awful thing!” Oddly, he was smiling as he said that, revealing just enough teeth to make him look like a big well-dressed rabbit. “And to be the detectives who solved the most notorious murder in the history of California.”
    “It’s a little early to be calling it that, Harry, don’t you think?”
    “Not really—not considering the crime . . . not considering the noise Jim Richardson and Old Man Hearst are making, and will make. . . . What do you say, Nate? Is it a deal?”
    “All right.”
    He offered his hand—it was smaller than a frying pan—and I shook it, firmly.
    The Hat sighed, contentedly, as if he’d just finished a big, fine meal. He folded his arms and said, casually, “Now, let’s move on to that other question.”
    “What other question?”
    “The one about trust. Can I trust you, Nate?”
    “I don’t know why people even bother asking that question, Harry—an honest man and a liar will give you the same answer.”
    “What about this, Nate, as a show of trust?” He nodded toward coroner’s room four. “I’m going to share one of those three ‘surprises’ with you.”
    “Why?”
    He raised a lecturing finger. “Because if you tell anyone, if it gets in the Examiner , I’ll know I can’t trust you . . . and I’ll still have two surprises left.” Yes, sir, the Hat was one crafty son of a bitch.
    Grinning in spite of myself, I said, “Okay, Harry—surprise me.”
    He glanced down the hall—both ways. Then, very quietly, he said, “That girl . . . whoever she is . . . she ingested fecal matter before she died.”
    I winced. “What the hell?”
    “To put it more coloquially—in words your friend Mr. Fowley could understand—she ate shit, Heller. Someone made hereat shit before killing her. . . . That’s the kind of man we’re dealing with.”
    “Holy Christ.”
    “Why, Nate—you’ve turned pale on me. Hardcase like you?”
    “It’s just . . . some sick fucker needs to be cured.”
    Nodding, the Hat said, “Cyanide pellets would do nicely. Now—do you have anything you can give me, from the Examiner ’s side?”
    “Yeah, actually, I do,” I said, and I told him about Richardson using the SoundPhoto to wire the prints to